


look back in anger, driven by the night

by readergirl1013



Series: just kiss off into the air [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Police, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readergirl1013/pseuds/readergirl1013
Summary: Diego stared up at the kid perched on the bridge above him, fear and anger stirring in his gut. (And painful memories clawing at his heart.)Eleven years this past April, a soft voice he knew was only in his head whispered,don’t let this child’s family have to count the years, Diego.He still listened to that soft voice anyway.





	look back in anger, driven by the night

Diego stared up at the kid perched on the bridge above him, fear and anger stirring in his gut. (And painful memories clawing at his heart.)

_ Eleven years this past April _ , a soft voice he knew was only in his head whispered,  _ don’t let this child’s family have to count the years, Diego _ .

He still listened to that soft voice anyway.

Ignoring his superior officers around him all debating what to do and whether they should call the fire department, Diego quickly scrambled up the suspension wires holding the bridge up to reach the little ledge where the potential jumper was. He ignored those same superior officers shouting at him to get down.

“Hey,” he called out to the kid - a boy of about sixteen - when he was close enough that he’d hear him.

The kid, who’d been watching him climb up, glared. “I’ll jump if you come any closer.”

Diego would like to say he’d raised his hands and capitulated to comfort the suicidal kid, but considering he was dangling from a couple of wires in a really awkward position, he just snorted in disbelief. “Uh-huh, sure. I’m sure we could play this out like those scenes on Lifetime movies or whatever, but I’m about to fall to my death before you manage to jump, so I’m coming onto that ledge. I don’t want to die today, even if you do. I’m not going to grab you or anything, just sit there.”

The kid scowled and seemed to take in his position and shrugged. “Yeah, alright.”

Diego finished his climb out onto the ledge. The boy wasn’t watching him, instead, he was staring at the cops below scurrying around. “They don’t seem happy with you, man.”

“Yeah,” Diego sighed looking down with a wince. “I’m probably going to get my ass kicked for this one, if not fired for it.”

He was only a rookie, fresh from the police academy, and he was already on thin ice for his anger issues during his training. Hell, they made his attendance at anger management classes a condition of his receiving his badge. The only reason they hadn’t thrown him out on his ass was that he really only had issues when someone was ordering him around like he didn’t have a brain. He was fine with his fellow rookies, and the people they arrested, and even superior officers who weren’t jackasses.

Still, he was walking a tightrope and he’d probably just swan-dove off the side.

“So why come up if it’s going to get you fired?” the kid asked. “It’s not like I’m not going to jump anyway.”

The kid was screaming for help. “Because, kid... Actually, first, what’s your name?”

“What’s yours?” the kid demanded.

“Diego,” he said. “Your turn.”

“Tyler.”

“Because, Tyler, unlike the rest of these bozos,” he waved down at the other cops, “I have experience in suicide prevention.”

“Huh?”

“I volunteer at one of the suicide prevention hotlines,” he explained. “I have for… for a while.”

“How come?” Tyler asked. Then he scowled. “Not that you’ll stop me.”

“Sure,” Diego agreed lightly. He had to convince the kid to accept his help before offering it. 

“You won’t,” the kid muttered petulantly.

“You seem pretty determined, Tyler,” He lied. If this kid was determined he’d already have jumped. He took a deep breath and said, “But to answer your question, I volunteer in suicide prevention because my sister committed suicide. She was only thirteen. I’m still angry at myself for not being able to save Vanya, so I decided to try and lose some of my anger by channeling it into saving others.”

(His anger management counselor approved of that, even if he kept making noises about processing his trauma and moving toward acceptance of the fact that Diego couldn’t have saved Vanya. It pissed him off when the counselor did that, so he had a feeling it wasn’t quite as much progress as the guy was hoping for.)

Tyler looked stricken at his confession. Most people were when they found out about his sister.

“My sister Emma’s thirteen,” he whispered.

Diego nodded. Bingo. He had his hook. “You try and talk to her about whatever’s bugging you?”

“No, I… no,” Tyler said. “She’s still so, so little. I’m nearly seventeen, she wouldn’t get it.”

“Well, try me then,” Diego offered. “I’ve been nearly seventeen.”

The kid stared out over the water. “I hate school, it’s awful.” He paused for a long while and Diego was about to prompt him to continue when Tyler did so on his own. “There are these guys, they kept calling me gay all the time, and now the whole school does. I can’t get through even one day without someone calling me a fag or threatening me if I look at them in the locker room or even just beating me up for daring to exist.”

“I’m sorry,” Diego said softly. “That’s terrible and has got to be tough to deal with.”

The kid started crying. “The worst part is they’re  _ right _ . I, I think I am gay. I don’t…  _ like  _ girls. I can’t tell my parents anything, they’re super religious and they won’t love me anymore and they’d totally kick me out and they’re already pissed because I’m failing gym because I’ve been skipping to get away from those guys. I’m not going to get into college now and I’ll never be able to do anything.”

Diego’s heart broke for this poor kid. “Tyler,” he said, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. I know you probably don’t believe me because what you’re hearing from your community is telling you the opposite, but I promise you. There is  _ nothing  _ wrong with being gay.  _ Nothing _ , Tyler.”

“What do you know about it?” the kid glared.

“My brother is gay,” Diego simplified. Klaus was way too complex to describe to a kid ready to jump off a bridge. “I still love him. He’s my brother, man. More than that, he’s a successful author despite never having gone to college. You might have read one of his books,  _ The Last Words  _ series?”

Tyler stared. “No way. Klaus Graves is your brother? And… and he’s gay?”

“Yeah,” Diego nodded. “I take it you’re a fan?”

“Dude, those books are  _ awesome _ . I love horror stuff.”

“Don’t tell Klaus, but I’m actually not a fan of horror,” Diego confided to the kid like Klaus didn’t already know that. 

“Yeah, neither is Emma,” Tyler said.

“Your little sister, right?”

Tyler nodded. “She likes comic books though, so that’s pretty cool.”

Diego nodded. “Have you tried talking to her about the fact your feeling suicidal?” he asked gently. “About any of this.”

The kid slumped. “No. She wouldn’t get it.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Diego agreed. “I’m glad you’re talking to me though.”

Tyler was quiet for a long minute. “You really think I should talk to her?”

“I think you should give her the chance to not live the rest of her life angry at herself - so angry that she hates herself - because she didn’t say something to you before you killed yourself.” 

Tyler jerked as though he’d been hit. Diego reached out a hand to steady him because saying that had been a risk, the kid could have reacted really negatively if he’d perceived it as some kind of guilt trip rather than the blunt honesty Diego meant it as. 

Thankfully, the kid didn’t shrug his hand away. “Is that… is that how you feel?”

“Yes,” Diego said, voice thicker than he’d like. “I bet you anything Emma  _ knows  _ something is bothering you, Tyler, she just isn’t sure what to say. I knew something was up with Vanya. I just, I was thirteen too. And I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how she’d have reacted if I’d asked… asked  _ anything _ .”

He took a deep breath. “So I said  _ nothing _ . And now I have to live with that. With wondering if I’d just gotten up the guts to  _ ask  _ her something as simple as ‘ _ are you okay _ ’ or ‘ _ what’s wrong _ ’ would she still be alive? How can I not be angry at myself for being too much of a coward not to speak up? How can I not hate myself for that? How could anyone?”

Tyler looked down at his hands. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I… I don’t want Emma to hate herself,” he said meekly. “It’s not… she shouldn’t…”

He broke down crying, great gasping sobs and practically threw himself onto Diego. 

Diego took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around the kid, holding him tightly. “I’ve got you, Tyler, you’re going to get through this.”

When Tyler finally calmed down, Diego handed him a card.

“What’s this?”

“My card, I used to be a P.I. so my address is on here too. You need to talk to someone, you come and find me, got it?”

“Okay.”

“Great, now you ready to climb down?”

Tyler nodded. Diego went down first, slowly climbing down the wires, and Tyler followed after. His feet hit the ground and he reached up to grab the kid down, and the moment he did a cheer went up. Cops and paramedics both rushed forward to grab them and pull them over to be looked at.

Diego was being glared at by his partner up until Tyler insisted on giving him a hug before getting in the ambulance.

“What the fuck was that, Hargreeves?” Spinelli demanded as they got into their cruiser, glaring at him again. “You couldn’t wait for an actual professional to do it, just had to play the hero, huh?”

“I am the actual professional,” Diego said dully. “I volunteer at a suicide prevention hotline, Spinelli, I literally do this most nights. I’ve actually been called out to talk people off ledges by the police before, this wasn’t my first rodeo.”

“Huh,” Spinelli said, lightening up some as he turned the car on. “I’m going to need to see the documentation on that in order to get it by the captain, but at least this wasn’t a complete shitshow and you managed to talk the kid down.”

Diego hummed and didn’t say anything else. The ride back passed in silence but the precinct burst into sarcastic applause as they walked back in. He flipped them all off and walked back to talk to the captain. The guy preferred confessions over finding the shit his officers got up to for himself.

After his confession - and a promise to bring by the paperwork proving what he’d claimed - Diego started on his own paperwork for the night. He figured he’d get teased a bit for playing cowboy and that would be the last he'd hear of it until he did something else stupid.

It wasn’t.

Because, somehow, three weeks later he got called out to talk down another jumper. This one was a twenty-year-old girl.

And then a month after that it was a sixty-five-year-old man at the train tracks. Two more months and a thirty-year-old man. Three weeks and a fourteen-year-old girl.

He stomped into the captain’s office after that one, it hit a little too close to home with her long brown hair and bangs and big brown eyes.

“Why am I getting called out to deal with every suicidal person in this city?” he demanded angrily.

The captain sat up slowly and gave him a look. “Want to try that again, Hargreeves?”

Diego breathed in and out slowly for a minute. “Sorry,” he said. “Sir, why do I keep getting called out to talk down jumpers?”

The captain sighed. “Well, at least you’re getting that temper under control. Sit down.” Diego glowered but sat. The captain sighed again. “And the reason you’re getting called is that you’re qualified to do it and cops would rather trust another cop than leave it up to an outsider, Hargreeves.”

Diego frowned. He didn’t know what to say to that.

“Look, Hargreeves, I’m going to be honest here. You’re going to keep being called out and I’m going to encourage it. Not only does it look good on the precinct but it looks good on your record. There were a lot of guys high up in the brass that didn’t want you to pass through the academy on account of that temper of yours and the shit you got up to as a kid. They’re looking for anything to get rid of you. But you being able to talk suicidal kids like that little girl from earlier down is making them have to eat their words.”

Diego looked away sharply. He’d spent that whole damn talk stopping Hannah from jumping earlier trying not to see Vanya.

“Aw, hell, son,” the captain sighed. “Who was it?”

“Sir?” Diego said.

“You don’t devote as much time to helping people who are suffering from one specific thing as you have without having a reason. Your face when I mentioned that little girl - and the fact you’re only having an issue with this now after months of being called out - that tells me something about that girl is bothering you. Who’d you lose, son? What’s her name?”

Diego hesitated for a moment. “My little sister. She committed suicide when she was thirteen. Hannah, the girl earlier, she kind of looked like her.”

The captain sighed again and shook his head. “Too young,” he murmured. He pulled something out of his desk. Diego raised an eyebrow at the whiskey and pair of tumblers. “We’re toasting your sister,” the captain explained, “and we’re toasting the fact that since you started working here we haven’t had a single suicide in our jurisdiction; not the ones we can get to in time, at least. Can’t stop the folks that do it in private, but you’ve stopped every single one that was in public.”

Diego was startled. “What?” The captain shoved a glass in his hands.

“First, to your sister…?” the captain let it trail off.

Diego knew to supply, “Vanya.”

“To Vanya, may she find the peace in death that she couldn’t in life.” 

“To Vanya.” Diego downed his whiskey along with the captain. It tasted like horse piss but he managed not to cough.

“And now, to the fact that there hasn’t been a single successful suicide we could have prevented since you started here, Hargreeves, and hopefully none to come.”

“To no more suicides,” Diego said. He could drink to that. 

The soft voice he sometimes heard, the one that reminded him so much of his sister even though it was only in his head, echoed, ‘ _ To no more suicides _ .’ A pause. Then: ‘ _ I’m proud of you, Diego. _ ’

If Diego didn’t say anything for a while after coming out of the captain’s office, well, no one needed to know it was because if he did he’d start stuttering. Not because he thought he was losing his mind, but because he desperately hoped Vanya would be proud of him even if he still hated himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I have no experience in suicide prevention. I wrote this scene after doing a bunch of research, but that doesn't mean I got it right. If someone would like to let me know if it's accurate or not, that would be great. 
> 
> Also, the sequel will be published when completed.


End file.
